Your upcoming movie A New York Story - in a few words, what's
it going to be about?

It’s about a man’s struggle with his past and how it affects his
choices in life. It’s also about the cycle of revenge and how once that
cycle starts, how difficult it is to stop it. It’s also a love story at
the core of it all too.

With A New York Story being
a crime movie - is that a genre at all dear to you, and some of your genre
favourites?

To be honest I'd probably say it’s more
than a crime movie, but for ease of putting it into a digestible bracket,
crime movie is fine. I do love the crime genre to be honest, I grew up
watching particularly 70s American crime movies, like Straight Time,
The Driver, Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Outfit, Serpico
- those type
of movies, and I liked the gritty realism of those movies and how they were
mostly character driven scripts. I think the crime genre has lost that a
little as of late, the more character driven movies I mean. I also REALLY
adore sci-fi movies and who doesn't love a good horror!

(Other) sources of inspiration when writing A
New York Story?

I began writing a love story about 3
years ago. It was about a criminal who couldn’t describe his work to
his wife and how that ultimately finished their life together, but the
more re-drafts I did, the more it grew into what it has now become. The core
of what was originally written remains there but there’s so many more
angles of interest now. Inspiration-wise I'm not really sure to be honest.
I wanted to write a love story because when I had finished The
Psychiatrist I was drained. That took me to a lot of dark places in my
mind and I wanted to do something lighter. As the re-drafts continued
though it became apparent to me that the love story was underpinning the
rest of the elements, it was a good platform to build drama upon.

David Yow

George Newton

Robbie Conway

What can you tell us about your
key cast and crew, and why exactly these people?

When I
started to write this a few years back I had noticed that David Yow was
taking more acting work. And when I saw his movie Walls In The City,
I was so taken with his performance that I knew he was the man for the
lead role. He’s got such a natural charisma and you can’t learn that,
it’s either in you or its not. And I think he’s gotten better and
better each movie he’s done. We also recently cast George Newton [George
Newton interview - click here], and
wow, what an actor, what a presence he has. His character has enhanced the
movie in a way that’s beyond measurement. Goerge is one of the finest UK
character actors out there now and I really do hope he gets to show just
how versatile he can be because he really is a force to be reckoned with.
Then we cast Robbie Conway who played a character in the TV series Shameless.
When I watched that, for me, he was so good. He displayed great
stillness, he acted from his eyes, and his face, the extremely subtle
nuances in his work are incredible. He in less than five years will be a
leading man in his own right im sure of it. We also were keen on working
with David Hoyle again, he was amazing in The Psychiatrist and I know
he’ll be just as superb in this film. There isn’t one single cast
member that we didn’t think long and hard about before approaching them
so although there’s too many to mention here I'd like to say that ALL the
cast are brilliant and we really all hope we can make not just a good
film, we want to make a classic film that people will still be watching in
20 years time. And I genuinely believe with this cast and this project, we
have a good shot at making a film that will be still held in high regard
in years to come (laughs), maybe nobody will like it but we’d have
tried, and that’s what it's all about.

As far
as I know, A New York Story is still in pre-production as we speak
- so what stage are you at, presently, and what's the schedule?

We
are nearing the end of pre-production so we’re hoping to go into full
swing mid August, of course that all depends on how the fates treat us. If
I think the screenplay isn’t ready im not going to rush this one, it
deserves more than that. However things have moved pretty quickly so far
but as there have been a few additional characters added, their parts are
being ironed out a little, and this takes time. Plus, what was going to be
just a £100,000 project and now turned into something more like a £500,000
project, so lots of new ideas are being incorporated. But in all honesty
I can’t see us having anything but the best start to the principle
filming and yeah, we’re all excited by it.

It's
probably waaay too early to ask, but any idea when and where the film
might be released yet?

The plan is to finish filming before
the end of this year, edit, etc, then place it into Cannes, Sundance, and
a whole host of other film festivals first. And then, maybe this time next
year we’ll have a few very limited cinema screenings before we hand it
all across to the DVD and VoD distributors to work their magic. So if you
were asking when will it be out on DVD I'd say perhaps August/September of
2015.

Any future projects beyond A
New York Story you'd like to talk about?

Eromeda
Films have just started a working relationship with writer director
Wade Radford, and we’re in talks to release his movies, and then
there’s a gifted character actor/director/producer called Phillip
Mulhern. He’s shot some interesting films and I've cast him in a really
disturbing psychological drama called Inside Minded. He’ll blow
your mind I'm certain of it. Oh and also, there’s a Zombie Trilogy I'm
writing. I was asked to write initially just one Zombie Film, and then it
turned into “hey can you maybe do it as a trilogy”, which while on the
one hand was very nice to be asked, it was and is a lot of work but the
first two chapters of the three are written, so when I finish on A New York
Story I'd like to finish those off. After that, maybe a holiday?

To keep tabs on A
New York Story, the best place right now is the film's Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/ANewYorkStory.
There WILL be an official website and it’ll be designed by a wonderful
chap who works with us at Eromeda and he’s a joy to work with, so hello
there Anthony if you’re reading this.

Anything else
you are dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?

Hmm
ah yes, the soundtrack, I can’t say too much right now but the
soundtrack for this film is going to be something special.